| Author: | Wang, Zhongliang |
| Title: | Textual variations between translated and non-translated English corporate annual reports : a corpus-assisted investigation |
| Advisors: | Liu, Kanglong (CBS) Li, Dechao (CBS) |
| Degree: | DALS |
| Year: | 2023 |
| Subject: | Corporation reports Financial statements Translating and interpreting Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Faculty of Humanities |
| Pages: | xiv, 221 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Annual reports are a crucial means by which companies communicate with their investors and stakeholders. Despite the importance of annual reports, their readability and language functions have received only limited and fragmented scholarly attention, with most studies relying solely on a single index to measure readability, while other measures of sentence complexity being underexplored. Furthermore, prior research has primarily focused on isolated language features of annual reports, with a scarcity of systematic and comprehensive analyses of the textual features of annual reports using language dimensions. Moreover, while translated annual reports represent an important component of such reports, their linguistic features remain largely neglected. This study aims to address these gaps by employing a comprehensive approach to investigating the readability, syntactic complexity, and language functions of translated and non-translated English corporate annual reports. Three corpora were compiled from the annual reports of listed companies based in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the United States, with each corpus containing sub-corpora representing the three sections of annual reports: chairman’s statements, Management’s Discussion and Analysis (MD&A), and Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements (NCFS). The study used 5 readability indices, 14 syntactic complexity indices, and a multi-dimensional analysis model to conduct comparisons among the three groups. The Kruskal-Wallis Test and Mann-Whitney U tests were employed to assess the significant differences. The results revealed that the translated MD&A and NCFS of mainland Chinese companies are more readable than the native ones of American companies. However, the translated chairman’s statements are less readable than the non-translated ones of American and Hong Kong companies. Regarding syntactic complexity, the translated chairman’s statements and MD&A narratives are characterized by longer production units, more coordinate phrases, and more complicated nominals. Nonetheless, they exhibit less complexity in overall sentences, subordination, and verb phrases than their native counterparts of American companies. Conversely, the translated NCFS are more complex in subordination and overall sentence complexity than the native ones of American companies. In terms of language functions, the translated chairman's statements and MD&A narratives are less involved and more informational, while the translated NCFS are more involved and less informational than their native counterparts of American companies. This study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the linguistic differences between translated and non-translated annual reports, thereby enriching the existing knowledge of translational language. Moreover, the study provides practical and pedagogical insights into communication challenges associated with financial translation. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7137.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 3.71 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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